In Wanting to Explode
by Lynne the Canuck
Summary: Post-Rent ... And now you're trembling on a rocky ledge/Staring down into a heartless sea/Can't face life on a razor's edge/Nothing's what you thought it would be .. It's not as if you're all alone/In wanting to explode - Rush,'The Pass'
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER**: This is a work of original fan fiction based on characters and situations created by Jonathan Larson. The intent of this work is for the entertainment of the fans of the musical theatre work "Rent" and its 2005 movie adaptation, and is not intended to garner payment in any form.

I only rent. I don't own.

**Author's Note: Now complete. Thanks to my Beta-Reader, YoungBoHo.**

**Thanks for reading.**

* * *

IN WANTING TO EXPLODE

_And Pity, like a naked, newborn babe,  
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubins horsed  
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,  
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,  
That tears shall drown the wind._

-- William Shakespeare  
Macbeth: Act 1, Scene 7

**  
Prologue**

The thunderstorm was different in western New York from the deluges in the state's namesake city. It smelt fresh, not like a sodden gutter, full of peripheral waste.

No matter how much it rained on the city, the collected sediment never washed away. The soaked scab of filth would bleed away from the calloused dull buildings, forming rivulets that snaked down the street.

In between the indifferent eyes of the housing units, the wind blew cutting and cold.

It seemed the bitter wind scattered the debris of indistinct shadows through the lamp-blind streets.

Sometimes, there was no barrier between sky and earth there. Sometimes, Roger imagined he could keep walking up, up into the shadow of infinity.

The industrial smell of the permanent marker mixed with the sweetness from the lingering smoke of the joint, that bobbed like a body in the glass of water next to him. "I'm still in control", he whispered, before the delicate illusion of calm gained from relaxing into the storm was ripped from him with an explosion of light …

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"You've reached 555-0496. Leave a message."

It was always telemarketers at this time in the evening. He wasn't interested in buying into time-sharing schemes and, since he never played the lottery or entered promotions, he highly doubted that he should exchange his Social Security number for the grand prize. Come to think of it, he had no interest in investing in a company that sold curling-themed fondue sets in the Congo, either.

Irritated, Mark turned up the volume on the television set.

"Goodbye," said the familiar voice. Mark lunged, but the line was dead by the time he lifted the receiver.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Roger found his current apartment near Ninth Street and Avenue B, for 237 per month. None of the small circle of friends even knew that he had a regular day job to pay for it, until he asked Collins for help filling out his tax forms.

"Did the planets align?" Collins had teased. "Roger Davis, who was pissed off at Benny for a whole year for selling out, is now, himself, a robotic cog in the profit making machinery of free enterprise!"

"Fuck off, Thomas." It would be out of character if Roger didn't display examples from his store of rich vocabulary, at least once in an evening's discussion. "Besides, at least I'm selling guitars and shit, and that sort of adds to the local artistic scene."

"You keep telling yourself that, sell-out."

Still, on the plus side, Roger had heat in the winter and a fan in the summer. He could afford his medicine and enough food to stock his cupboards (and grow fuzzy grey botany experiments with his leftover dinners in the refrigerator). He even saved enough money to buy himself a used, eight inch, black and white television set.

Everyone knew not to schedule anything with Roger on Thursday nights, when he dropped everything to watch _Twin Peaks_. Collins was quite amused by the quirky development, commenting to Roger on one occasion that he simply had to look out the window if he wanted to see eccentric characters and their dramas.

Behind the good-natured kidding and affordable creature comforts, Collins knew that being productive and interacting with people was the best thing for Roger's well being.

However, all of that spectacularly smashed into blind prejudice when Roger finally went to the AIDS clinic about his failing vision. More devastating than his encroaching blindness was the revelation of its cause. His test results revealed he was co-infected with cytomegalovirus. The proposed treatment, daily doses of a second toxic anti-viral drug -- given through a permanent chest tube -- was not an option.

Roger was well aware of the consequence of his treatment refusal. He had obsessed over the day his HIV status progressed to a ticking time bomb, ever since the day he found April floating in a bath of her own blood. Like her, he would meet his disease on his terms.

As Collins listened to Roger's desperate cries through the receiver, he could only think to lessen such devastation by reducing it to its elemental level. "This is a primal war and the stake is your mind," Collins told his friend. "Never admit to yourself that you are beaten."

Nevertheless, he was. Roger couldn't block his visualization of Death moving its nightmarish limbs, slouching towards him, blank and pitiless.

As time went on, Roger's vision continued to degenerate, and he very quickly found that he couldn't hide his failing health from his co-workers. Somehow, the fact that he had the _'Gay-Cancer'_ spread amongst them. Despite working and socializing with Roger for a little over a year, they began to avoid him. When he didn't quit, their avoidance tactics changed to abuses.

It was more than just stubbornness and the need for money that found him at work. The job anchored him to a life he could have had. It was his second chance; so, he endured the daily flaying of his dignity.

Eventually, his duties and pay rate were reduced to cleaning the employee bathroom (that he was forbidden to use). One rain-soaked morning, as he knelt to scrub the toilet, the hatred directed at what Roger represented finally reached its summit. Three of his co-workers opened the door with a crash, and drenched him with a bucket of dirty mop water.

Their faces twisted into unimaginable hate, as they watched him slip and smack his head on the cheap linoleum floor. The smallest of the three grabbed a fistful of Roger's sweatshirt and dragged him out into the store's public section.

"Get out, you fucking queer!"

Roger carefully got to his feet, acutely aware of the smell and gritty feel of wet urban filth. It dangled in brown drops from every part of him, making discordant plopping noises as he clenched his jaw and backed away. One or two of the customers turned to briefly look at the pathetic sight, before losing interest.

That, however, wasn't the end of his humiliation. Roger's boss confronted him outside on the street. "I can't have you infecting me or my customers," he bluntly told him. "And if I get AIDS because of you, I'll rip your goddamn throat out! Now get the fuck away from my store, and don't even think of showing your sorry ass around here no more!"

It was a cruel lesson for Roger to have experienced, and one to which Collins – a HIV-positive, gay, black man, from a ghetto – had endured for most of his life. On the way back to the apartment with Roger after that incident, Collins had merely placed a heavy arm across the damp shoulders and quietly said, "At least they didn't beat the hell out of you."

"Look, I know I've said this before but, after what they did to you it bears repeating." Roger didn't respond as he sat slumped in the torn subway seat, the train's motion jostling him like an abandoned marionette.

"No one knows what will happen tomorrow," Collins pressed on. "But the foundation of here and now has to be made of optimism and structure."

Roger's bitter dismissal of the word optimism, while expected, was vehement enough to redirect the focus of the conversation. Structure, then, Collins decided, swift and sharp.

"You've got to maintain your daily routine, because routine is really a ritual for cleansing your thoughts and reaffirming what is truly important."

"And that is?" Roger spoke so softly that his voice almost died under the squeal of the wheels, as the train navigated a bend in the tunnel.

"The deadly seriousness about keeping the proper frame of mind, or else you'll loose it."

"Thomas, I want to visit Mark." At first, Roger's declaration confused him, as it didn't immediately appear to connect with the rest of the conversation. As he began to consider the muted elements of it, he realized that this was Roger's belay, the only workable solution for him, to keep from plunging into a crater.

"I planned to join a couple of the guys from work with beer and bears over Memorial Day weekend," he was saying. "Then, they had this shit-fit; so, I might as well get my money's worth out of that fucking stuff on our way to Mark."

The ironic vision of city-boy Roger trying to set up a tent was almost enough to have obscured Collins' awareness of his inclusion in the plan. Getting the time off from his teaching job for this trip would pose no problem. The problem would lie in facing Mark at the end of it.

"Let me go shove some clean underwear in a bag, and I'll bring my car around in a couple of hours."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

As Collins descended back into the subway station, Roger began walking in the opposite direction toward a pawn shop not far from his apartment.

He wasn't asked for identification. The dealer did not mention anything about needing a background check or a permit. All the guy wanted was money, preferably in the correct change.

Roger didn't haggle. He wasn't in the mood. He just slipped the revolver into his pocket.

"Hey," Roger froze half-way out the shop door, hoping the man didn't notice or didn't care that his movements declared him blind. "You'll need bullets."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Although his conviction that art could forge social change was still as strong as ever, Mark's belief in his own artistic abilities as part of that process had slowly wasted into a numbing despair.

Roger once told him that it took about a year and several hundred injections before he morphed into a junkie. He did whatever he wanted to do, and fuck everybody else. Mark was the only one left who even talked to him, and he didn't know why he stayed.

Roger had only realized how far down he followed that white powdered trail to addiction when he woke up one morning, and felt repulsively sick without it. From that morning until the withdrawal symptoms stopped, Mark thought that any pleasure Roger got from heroin was actually the instantaneous relief from screaming nerve endings.

April's grotesque suicide was the shock Roger needed to acknowledge and stop that form of slow death. Now he was wading through another form of slow death, but at least he was lucid.

One morning, after chasing the pearl of lucrative recognition for years, and after what seemed like several hundred rejections, Mark wondered if he had become addicted to the struggle, at the cost of reality. Maybe that's why he stayed during those dark days, to watch Roger shrivel into madness and to question whether he wasn't doing the same. Or, maybe it was because he still felt some glimmer of hope for both of them.

It happened while he was filling in for a sound engineer at _The Bottom Line_ club for some quick cash. Mark realized that he had imposed a framework upon himself and played a dramatized part for over a year. No wonder he was failing. He could not live a successful life unless he was willing to let go and allow his inner life to lead the way.

It was time, Mark thought, to address his own lucidity and either relegate his art to a hobby and join the stressed-out masses in the daily grind, or mount one last effort to live on his passion for filmmaking within a new environment.

Having made the decision to move to Los Angeles, Mark could barely force himself to tell his friend and long-time roommate. It would be less painful to wait until the last moment, but Roger deserved better treatment. That opportunity arrived in the form of Joanne and Maureen's invitation to dinner, set about a month before Mark had planned to move.

It was essential to him that the opportunity to return was readily available. He could not pursue this course of action if it began in anger because, despite a North Hollywood address, he would not have left the loft. He wanted to move forward and, hopefully, better define and enhance whatever it was that made Mark, Mark.

Half-way through his second helping of 'fish in parchment', he pushed his plate from him. Taking a deep breath to calm his anxiety about reactions to his announcement, he began. "I want you all to know how much your friendship means to me. I wouldn't have lasted here, as long as I have, without your support."

Roger had stopped eating, and avoided making eye contact with anyone. "You're leaving," he said quietly. It was then that he lifted his head to examine Mark's face for confirmation. "I could tell that you were sort of lost for the past few months."

Everyone sat still at the table, apprehensive toward the expanding emotions that hovered like a cloud in the girls' small apartment.

"How did you know?"

Sighing, Roger explained, "You don't live through all the shit we've gone through, and not know a guy." And not know that Mark had run out of possibilities. He had decades ahead of him, filled with an ambiguous future. He needed -- and deserved -- the freedom to grow.

Standing up, Roger paused behind Mark and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "I hope you find what you're looking for." Pausing at the apartment door, his voice rose in pitch. He wasn't angry, just sad and already lonely. "I'm going to fucking miss you, you fucking spatula; but, I'll live. I'll see you back at the loft."

The stunned silence continued for a few seconds after the door shut with a gentle click, until Collins spoke up.

"Well, what's for desert?"

_A/N: Reviews, good or bad, are welcomed. _


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5  
**

The rainstorm had surprised them, coming swiftly out of the West. When the roof of Collins' 1984 Maserati Biturbo shit-mobile started to leak, they pulled into the next food and gas exit for shelter and something to hot to eat. Setting up camp for the night was not an option, especially in light of Roger's health.

"Sugar's at three-o'clock. Salt at two. Pepper at four." As Roger reached out a finger to confirm the location of the condiments on the table, a short, young server approached them with menus.

"What's wrong with him?" She asked Collins, indicating Roger's obvious sickly appearance with a flick of her thumb.

Before he could respond, Roger spoke. "Cancer. It's cancer. And I'm fucking blind, not deaf!"

She left them with an indignant snort and, when she returned with unordered coffee, placed Roger's cup as far from him as the table length would allow. Shaking his head, Collins moved it to within reach. "Coffee at eleven."

As he took a few sips, and read the menu selections to Roger, Collins figured that _Hofgarten_ must be the German word for pickles -- the place reeked of it. He could even taste it in the coffee.

Fortunately, he found he could cover the taste with five or six helpings of sugar; but, Roger spat what he'd sipped back into the cup and pushed it aside, scraping his tongue against his teeth.

After a moment, he realized what he had done. "Ah, Collins? Could you --?"

There was no point in trying to convince Roger that AIDS could not be transmitted through saliva. His growing paranoia about protecting the world against his disease, specifically the one housed in his own body, would not allow him to accept reasoned corrections. Collins could almost describe his friend's reactions as a sort of shell-shock. It seemed as though Roger was unable to effectively understand and deal with the merciless responses he was subjected to. "No problem, Rog," he said, rising with the tainted pickle coffee. "I'll find an unsuspecting plant to throw it in."

Trying to relax against the back of the booth, Roger listened to the steady, mid-tone cadence of the rain when it hit the roofs of the cars parked outside. A puff of displaced air from the seat cushion across from him announced that Collins had returned.

"For a couple of months after April died, I thought her father might hunt me down, blaming me for his fuck-ups. Not surprisingly, he never did." Lately, Roger's nights had replayed his truncated time with his beautiful Morbus, his sweet guide who had opened his heart to wasting despair and death. This both puzzled and worried him as, up until a few weeks ago, he rarely thought of her.

"Well, first of all, I'm glad that some over-wrought parent didn't seek revenge on you," Collins replied, just as quietly. "But, why aren't you surprised it didn't happen?"

April had had a few photographs of friends, but none of her family. This omission, and the ease with which she slipped into a needle, were enough evidence of her home life that Roger could guess what it was like, although it was never discussed. He figured it was her business if she wanted to address it; so, the topic lay silent.

"I don't know what his problem with April was. Maybe he kicked her around or was never there." He shivered, before continuing. "I didn't know what he looked like; but, in those first two weeks –- between when I got tested after her funeral, and before the results came back -- I felt like I was being followed." And he still was; but, the shadow that now followed Roger was not vengeance.

Over the last month, his pain had worsened and was not relieved by standard medication. The loss of his vision, combined with unremitting suffering, had pulled Roger into severe depression.

Maybe those dreams of April were a longing to be transported back to a time when their lives were full of desires and hopes that seemed within reach. Maybe those dreams were the sharp shards of talismans from a safe time.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6**_

"_Goodbye," said the familiar voice. Mark lunged, but the line was dead by the time he lifted the receiver._

* * *

"Collins!"

Before he could turn toward the sound of the familiar voice, the exhausted former anarchist was encircled in a tourniquet-tight hug around his waist. "Easy there, Mark," he squeaked, "I need to breathe!"

A voice on the other end of the line brought Collins' attention back to the lobby telephone. "I don't need the flight information anymore. He just walked in the door."

"I got an earlier flight out."

Collins finally got a good look at his old friend. Mark had actually added some healthy weight in the last couple of years since he previously made it out to the East Coast. He didn't look so much like an animated Q-Tip. Apparently, he even discovered fashion out in Hollywood. His clothes were casually stylish, instead of the false geek advertisement of his loft days.

"You looking good, boy! Finally got rid of those Buddy Holly glasses, I see."

Mark smiled, slightly, while self-consciously pushing the rimless frames up the bridge of his nose. "I'm so grateful you called me, Collins. When all he said was 'good-bye' … the way his voice sounded … he scared the shit out of me!

"I need to see him." In a quieter voice, he asked, "How is he?"

Collins' face fell.

* * *

"Fuck!" Roger was shaking so much from pain that his attempts to roll a joint ended with most of the dried leaves on the carpet.

Roger knew he would not live to see Mark, again. He also was aware that Collins knew this before he joined him on this trip. It wasn't anything they needed to verbalize to be able to accept it.

He would leave nothing of remembrance, believing he was no longer capable of any sort of creation.

While deep in these thoughts, he heard the door whine open, and sensed the louder thumping sounds and fresh smell of the storm dancing through him. But, something wasn't right. Whoever intruded was taking a long time to identify himself.

"Who's there?"

"Oh, god. Roger!"

* * *

Collins and Mark sat silently on the concrete step before the door of their room. It was not the hard surface or the cold that made them uncomfortable; it was fear of their reaction to the inevitable.

They both had seen enough death over the years from this taboo disease that their voices had withered as each headstone bloomed.

Collins had rolled and lit the joint for Roger. AIDS had devoured him. Roger was six feet tall, yet he could not have weighed more than one hundred and ten, despite some abdominal swelling. His skin was thin and branded with the marks of a failing liver, and CMV had clouded the once bright green eyes.

Calming a little from the weak effects of marijuana, the dying man had claimed that he wanted to record a statement, and had asked Mark if he had brought a movie camera.

Of course Mark had brought it, a new model this time. He knew he wouldn't be able to visit the cemetery any other way, when the need overwhelmed him.

After a delicate embrace, Roger had asked the two of them to wait outside while he prepared himself.

He hoped that what he was writing across his chest would be legible. Exhaling the sweet smelling smoke, he felt around the bedside table for the glass of water, and extinguished what remained of the joint. Death would finally disperse the bitter embers of pitiful song concepts, and end the overpowering weight of its creeping immanency.

Basic self-maintenance had become a labourious struggle. Increasingly, he had to rely on assistance from Collins. It was embarrassing and too much to ask of anyone. If he survived much longer, it would not be long now before he sank into total clinical maintenance.

Maintenance of what? A corpse whose heart forgot to die when the rest of his body was already decomposing.

This was humiliating and undignified.

This was not living. It was hopeless.

He was tired of all the dehumanization and banishment.

He was tired of enduring.

He was just so fucking tired.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

****

_from,_ **In Wanting to Explode**

_**-- A Mark Cohen Film**_

_Master shot of Manhattan's Lower East Side in winter. Gentrified and cleaned up, but some elements of the struggling artists scene and dangerous atmosphere that affected Roger's life can still be glimpsed here and there._

New York: where you have to fight like hell now for what you can get, because there is no later on.

_Coverage shots of a young, healthy, vibrant Roger, aglow with dreams and creativity. Here was an obviously talented musician, literally and figuratively above the crowd at one of his first concerts after moving to Manhattan. Shots also feature a more common side, and include still pictures of his childhood, as well as intimate occasions during his days in the loft. We come to see Roger as a son, brother, friend – someone the audience can relate to and care about._

What Roger had been toting around wasn't really a musical instrument. This social cast off from New York's wasteland was carrying a hope chest in a guitar case. Only now, does it seem so extraordinary that he would dare to hope.

At the end of his life, Roger finally confronted the humiliation and powerlessness he felt while under the control of AIDS. It took everything he was, and he was unable to stop it.

_Smash cut to Roger at the end of his life -- so different, that the audience gasps in surprise. On screen, Roger is scarcely__ able to sing. It's more like rhythm talking, as if he's reciting poetry. The sound of the rain, evident in the footage, is barely discernable. It's obvious that the audio track has been reworked, post-production, in order to be able to hear the dying man at all._

And you freeze in the winter  
And you curse to the wind at your fate … With a storm in the wind

By choosing lyrics from Cabaret, Roger equates AIDS with an incarnation of the perverse. This final performance is a challenge to that point of view.

_Roger dropped the hand that was holding his shirt closed, to reveal the words "AIDS is HUMAN" scrawled in marker across his emaciated chest._

What would you do?  
Suppose you're one frightened voice  
Being told what the choice must be  
Go on, tell me  
I will listen

His disease makes us uncomfortable. His disease, his mortality, his humanity confronts the world in all its contradictions and ugliness.

_His other hand, which had been hidden behind him, arced around to reveal a .38 revolver clutched in it. The picture jerks, and Collins can be heard calling out to Roger, panic evident in his voice._

What would you do  
If you were me?

_Roger swung the gun around, the muzzle leaning against his chest. There is a feeling of vertigo, as the visual falls to the rain-soaked pavement. The picture fades to black, accompanied by the crack of a gun being fired._

I am charged with the responsibility that Roger expected of me when he asked me to record his last moments of life: to unleash his challenge on as many people as possible.

**

* * *

****  
Epilogue**

The mid-winter wind blew from the west, breathing ice and lye. It was clean and sheared the waste like a razor. It swept the shadows skittering and scurrying against fragile walls.

The barrier between sky and earth dissolved in darkened water. Roger imagined that he could walk into infinity.

The rain's white-noise siren and the smell of electric-fresh wet washed over him, cleansing the air from the rattle of empty life and transient dust.

The storm contracted in a synchronous flash – the crash of thunder harmonized with the bang of his gun, as he pulled the trigger.

Roger's chest raged in pain and, for a moment, he could sense a suffocating harsh light. Then, all that was left to him was immense weakness.

Sliding down the motel's abrasive wall, Roger sighed with the ecstasy of finally participating in the kind of creation for which he had craved. As the blood-tide was let lose, he merged and sailed with it on rivulets that snaked down the street into the chill certainties of darkness.

* * *

_. . . Jump over the Shadow  
It torments, this Shadow  
It devours, this Shadow  
What does the Shadow want  
Cocaine  
Shrieks  
Animals._

-- Sebastian Droste


End file.
